Innovation is increasingly invoked by policy elites and business leaders as vital for tackling global challenges like sustainable development. Often overlooked, however, is the fact that networks of community groups, activists, and researchers have been innovating grassroots solutions for social justice and environmental sustainability for decades. Unencumbered by disciplinary boundaries, policy silos, or institutional logics, these 'grassroots innovation movements' identify issues and questions neglected by formal science, technology and innovation organizations. Grassroots solutions arise in unconventional settings through unusual combinations of people, ideas and tools. This book examines six diverse grassroots innovation movements in India, South America and Europe, situating them in their particular dynamic historical contexts. Analysis explains why each movement frames innovation and development differently, resulting in a variety of strategies. The book explores the spaces where each of these movements have grown, or attempted to do so. It critically examines the pathways they have developed for grassroots innovation and the challenges and limitations confronting their approaches. With mounting pressure for social justice in an increasingly unequal world, policy makers are exploring how to foster more inclusive innovation. In this context grassroots experiences take on added significance. This book provides timely and relevant ideas, analysis and recommendations for activists, policy-makers, students and scholars interested in encounters between innovation, development and social movements.

This series of books brings together results of an intensive research programme on aspects of the national systems of innovation (NSI) in the five BRICS countries - Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. It provides a comprehensive and comparative examination of the challenges and opportunities faced by these dynamic and emerging economies. In discussing the impact of innovation with respect to economic, geopolitical, socio-cultural, institutional, and technological systems, it reveals the possibilities of new development paradigms for equitable and sustainable growth. This volume explores the relationship between transnational corporations (TNCs) and NSI across BRICS economies. The essays highlight the role of foreign direct investment (FDI), the evolution of TNCs and examine local factors - such as government policies, human resources, market structures, and technological capabilities - that affect collaborative efforts with indigenous firms towards innovation and development. The authors approach the thesis of technological globalisation with some caution, refuting the idea that research and development (R&D) activities have been inexorably internationalised. Original and detailed data, together with expert analyses on wide-ranging issues, make this book an invaluable resource for researchers and scholars in economics, development studies and political science, in addition to policy makers and development practitioners interested in the BRICS countries.

This series of books brings together results of an intensive research programme on aspects of the national systems of innovation (NSI) in the five BRICS countries - Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. It provides a comprehensive and comparative examination of the challenges and opportunities faced by these dynamic and emerging economies. In discussing the impact of innovation with respect to economic, geopolitical, socio-cultural, institutional, and technological systems, it reveals the possibilities of new development paradigms for equitable and sustainable growth. This volume explores the relationship between transnational corporations (TNCs) and NSI across BRICS economies. The essays highlight the role of foreign direct investment (FDI), the evolution of TNCs and examine local factors - such as government policies, human resources, market structures, and technological capabilities - that affect collaborative efforts with indigenous firms towards innovation and development. The authors approach the thesis of technological globalisation with some caution, refuting the idea that research and development (R&D) activities have been inexorably internationalised. Original and detailed data, together with expert analyses on wide-ranging issues, make this book an invaluable resource for researchers and scholars in economics, development studies and political science, in addition to policy makers and development practitioners interested in the BRICS countries.

Innovation is increasingly invoked by policy elites and business leaders as vital for tackling global challenges like sustainable development. Often overlooked, however, is the fact that networks of community groups, activists, and researchers have been innovating grassroots solutions for social justice and environmental sustainability for decades. Unencumbered by disciplinary boundaries, policy silos, or institutional logics, these 'grassroots innovation movements' identify issues and questions neglected by formal science, technology and innovation organizations. Grassroots solutions arise in unconventional settings through unusual combinations of people, ideas and tools. This book examines six diverse grassroots innovation movements in India, South America and Europe, situating them in their particular dynamic historical contexts. Analysis explains why each movement frames innovation and development differently, resulting in a variety of strategies. The book explores the spaces where each of these movements have grown, or attempted to do so. It critically examines the pathways they have developed for grassroots innovation and the challenges and limitations confronting their approaches. With mounting pressure for social justice in an increasingly unequal world, policy makers are exploring how to foster more inclusive innovation. In this context grassroots experiences take on added significance. This book provides timely and relevant ideas, analysis and recommendations for activists, policy-makers, students and scholars interested in encounters between innovation, development and social movements.